Couple indicted in scalding of boy, 3

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

By Clint Confehr Senior Staff Writer

A Marshall County grand jury has indicted a Lewisburg couple on charges of aggravated child abuse in connection with the scalding of a 3-year-old boy whose buttocks was allegedly dipped in a tub of hot water.

A Vanderbilt University Medical Center document in the court case file includes statements from a cousin of the boy's mother. The mother reportedly claimed the child got in the tub himself without assistance, but hospital staff found "no evidence of splash marks (or)... burn marks on hands or the feet."

Hilario Martinez-Perez, also known as Salvador Mendec, 24, of 2170 Franklin Pike, and Linda May Rowell, 26, of the same address, were indicted Wednesday, Nov. 19. Both remain in the Marshall County Jail on $100,000 bond each. Both are accused of abusing one of Rowell's three children.

The boy, his sister and brother were taken from the house by the cousin without objection from the mother, according to public records maintained by the Circuit Court clerk.